This entry was drafted during guard duty. Boredom often drives one to do inane things, especially when one is a sentry doing counter duty.

Ahh, the beauty of the night. Never noticed ordinarily going about normal routine, it is best appreciated when one is outdoors, whether during field camp or guard duty.

Maroon patches amidst a dark blue background. Such is the sky after afternoon thunderstorms. Pity about the stars though; they give much of the night's sense of awe and wonder. Without them, the night sky might as well be a patterned cloth draped in front of the sun, blocking its light.

As a sentry, one must take note of anybody booking in or out of camp. This includes the rats that take the drain on the right of the gate, and the dogs that take the gap in the fence on the left of the gate. All must wear camp passes and have valid reasons for entering or leaving camp, including foraging for food and looking for mates. The sole exceptions are the free-flying birds and insects, and the inconspicuous geckos, one of which is staring at me through the window.

Well this concludes the ramblings on guard duty. As mentioned before, only extreme boredom during counter duty can precipitate the writing of such mindless pieces of prose.

MapleSEA is taking over my life now. Note the lack of updates. This entry only exists because of the long download time of the 0.16 -> 0.18 patch (with a 512k connection no less...suing the ISP is seriously considered). A prime example of addiction, considering every waking moment of my life not in camp is devoted to it.

Going to book in for guard duty soon. A more substantial entry may follow, depending on the viewership of this site.

A month long absence from this site...one wonders what precipitated such a lull.
Not that nothing interesting has happened in the intervening month.
There was the Army Half Marathon run, which I did not attend due to medical status, but still had to go to the Padang at the unearthly hour of 5am.
The next week was a week of thankless jobs involving movement of objects from place to place. The one consolation was the view of DB from without, brought in part by the shifting of flowerpots. No NSF in his right mind would want to view DB from within.
The shifting of objects was in preparation of IKC2 week, whereby the army showcased equipment and systems to do with Integrated Knowledge based Command and Control, shortened to IKC2. Pundits have dubbed it I Kena Concussed 2(too). Upon a closer look at the arcane, user unfriendly systems, one finds their point rather valid.
IKC2 week is unforgiving to anyone who happened to be at Stagmont camp during that time, and NSF unit men bear the brunt of this unforgivingness. Anyone not involved in presenting said equipment and systems will be given a rather menial task to do, such as guiding buses and marshalling. One could argue that such tasks are essential to the proper operation of the exhibition, but that person in question obviously has not done any such jobs.
In accordance with the as yet unproven law of averages, the hectic weeks before will be balanced with this week and next week being essentially weeks of off and leave. More days at home or outside are always helpful the the stressed, underperforming NSF.

Luck is a fickle entity. Sometimes it clings on to you like cyanoacryate to nonporus surfaces, at other times it forsakes you completely leaving you an idiot at whatever you do regardless of your skills, abilities or intelligence. Last week was a perfect example of the latter.
Crappy booster packs, opponent ownage at games, tennis linesmanning in harsh weather that left a semipermanent singlet tattoo across the torso. And you thought army consisted only of charging up and down hills with sbo, helmet and rifle. Okay, so luck was with me at the crucial point of unit posting. Nevertheless, it was still a screwed up week compared to the previous weeks.
Luck can be conquered though. With abnormally high levels of skills, abilities and intelligence, one can effortlessly circumvent bad luck to do things beyond the capabilities of ordinary humans. In short, one becomes God.

For who is God but an ordinary human;He is only God when He does things humans cannot.
- To Man-Chat, Initial D

On 9 August 2005, Singapore will turn 40 years of age. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Singapore on having overcome 40 years of challenges to become the prosperous city state it is today.
Today's NE trip really stirred up my patriotism. Really.
Along with an appreciation and respect of the PAP party that will prevent me from doing anything anti-establishment in the future.
As a bonus to SAF personnel, there will be a day off on Wednesday.